Trimming the Airedale/October and a new Blogger personal Record

Fall weather has truly set it....the good early fall weather that is.  Yesterday Garry and I traveled to St. Henry, where, along with a 3rd official, we worked a Junior High 7th/8th grade double header between rivals St. Henry and Marion Local...the visiting took both ends, and I was back home by 8pm.  The wind was out of the north, but he temperatures remained pleasant...from the mid 70s at the start of the first game, it was still in the upper 60s at the end.  Today is a little cooler, but still near 70 for a high, while the weekend may have a shower and be 10 or 15 degrees cooler.  No varsity game subbing tonight, but a JV contest at Versailles tomorrow morning and a Rec League double header on Sunday inCelina.

Reagan, the Airedale turned 12 on July 6th....now almost 12 years 3 months old, she has become the 2nd longest living dog of that breed that I have owned....only our old Stud Dog Max, 12 years 7 months when he passed away in 1988, live longer.  His mate Rags made it a month short of 12 years, passing away in July of 1987.  The rest of the dozens of the breed we have kept, usually pass away at 11 or so years...that seems to be the average age Airedales live to be.

Reagan and her sister Xena,  from Jack and Ivy, are both still alive...my college roommate Mick Szabo and his wife Sue, owned Ivy, and Xena, while Jack was ours, he passed away, just after his 11th birthday in 2007.  Anyway, Reagan with her allergies, has lived longer than I ever expected....how much longer she has...I can only guess.  She sleeps most of the time and has slowed considerably in the past few months...but still eats well, and is off the medications she took for years....dogs?  The can be more expensive to keep than kids...but she is a part of the family and probably our last Airedale....36 years of 1 or more sharing the house and I'm not sure if I have it in me to raise and lose another.

Yesterday I took her to the Celina Pet Center for her final(probably) trim....they had to trim her close, because of some matting and her skin allergies...so the dog I picked up at 3pm looked much different than the one I took in at 8am.  Photos Below:

This morning I decided to get a trim myself....shaved the goatee, and almost took off the mustache, but decided to keep it for now....always hard to get rid of, since I have had some sort of facial hair for probably 38 of the last 40 years...only going without for a few months at a time on a couple of occasions.  So I took off the goatee and trim the upper lip to a 2 or 3 day growth.  And added the new look to the upper photo at the top. 

Blog Numbers Up...Sometimes there is no rhyme or

reason for the numbers that sitemeter has for individual blogs...but my numbers reached an all-time high for "The Rant" in September.  3191 visitors, which topped the old record set back in January of this year at 2948, and page visits were 4936, beating the record set the same month of 4699.  No rhyme or reason....Summer is usually slower, but that the way it works...Winter is busiest, since most folks spend more time indoors...I'm not sure why the numbers were up in September, but I appreciate the folks stopping by.

Enjoy the weekend....back later>>>>

Photos-top  Max top and Rag tree a local squirrel in our back yard in Dodge City, Kansas, in 1980....and Reagan before and after her trim yesterday.